


The Butterfly Effect Coda

by JaycieVictory



Series: Shenny Cooper for the Win [9]
Category: The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Romance, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-16
Updated: 2015-01-16
Packaged: 2018-03-07 20:35:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3182255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaycieVictory/pseuds/JaycieVictory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of self-contained drabbles and ficlets which celebrate all things Shenny and seek to bring together our favourite Whack-a-Doodle and Warrior Princess while (hopefully) still keeping them in character.</p>
<p>Part 9: What does the future look like with Penny and Sheldon together in it? A coda to The Butterfly Effect Symposium.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Butterfly Effect Coda

**Author's Note:**

> I broke my own rule here: this chapter is a continuation of the previous one, part 8. A reader asked for a snapshot into Future-Sheldon and Future-Penny together, and this is what came out...

**The Butterfly Effect Coda**

Penny re-entered the atmosphere with a slight stumble, pressing a hand to her spinning head as physics reasserted itself and her tumbled senses tried to make sense of her surroundings.

A pair of worried bright blue eyes met hers. She concentrated on them as she breathed through the motion sickness, mindful of Sheldon's lectures that a focal point helped you to readjust...

Besides, they were so pretty.

The nausea was annoying rather than worrying; she knew it was only temporary. There were no long-term side effects from Sheldon's machine. Sheldon had tested it on himself several times before allowing Penny to go through a wormhole. (Though his original suggestion had been to try it out on an extremely unimpressed Leonard, pointing out the loss to science and future generations would be far less severe should something go awry.)

Nevertheless, no sooner had her gaze locked on his, he was immediately on hand, testing her vitals, checking her pupils, practically clucking like a mother hen as he made sure she was fine.

Once satisfied, he stepped back, folding his arms. His gaze sharpened.

"Report!"

Penny rolled her eyes, but couldn't help smiling a little. Ever since he'd been conscripted by the government, Sheldon had taken to lapsing into military speak. Truthfully, she kinda found it a turn-on, but couldn't allow that to show too often. Their relationship was always a struggle for power, one giving way as the other pushed, then it flipping right back over again.

Just the way they liked it.

"I did exactly what you told me to, Moonpie."

Sheldon's nostrils flared at this deliberate provocation, but he refused to be deflected. Once locked on a target, he would not let himself be distracted until he achieved his goal. (Another thing she found a turn-on in other situations.)

"Did you inform the subject that you were from the future?"

"Yes."

"Did you convince them to engage in the breathing exercise?"

"Yes."

"Did the subject achieve the desired self-realisation?"

"Yes."

"Did you reveal the importance of her breaking up with Leonard?"

"No."

"Did the subject decide to break up with Leonard of her own accord?"

"Yes."

"Even though you did not overtly reveal why it was so important?"

"Yes."

"Good." A pause. "Did you reveal the extent of our relationship?"

"No, Sheldon," she emphasised, batting her eyes at him. "I didn't say anything about our relationship – not after you said how important it was I didn't apply 'undue influence for fear of resetting the time continuum and detrimentally altering our temporal paradigm'.

Sheldon's eyes flashed dark blue for a moment as Penny quoted him word-for-word (Penny wasn't the only one with weird turn-ons), but her distraction wasn't quite enough. Just as she had started to learn rudimentary Physics, Sheldon had learnt to pick apart verbal and physical cues. Especially Penny's.

He knew her too well.

"Really?" he purred, as one hand stroked down her arm... before grabbing her left hand and hoisting it up to eye-level. "Then perhaps you could explain why you are  _wearing your engagement ring_?"

"Ah, nuts," Penny muttered.

"Dear Lord!" Sheldon released her hand and raised his arms to the heavens. "Why must you torment me with such fools?" He turned back to Penny. "Penny – how could you take such a risk when I specifically told you not to! Don't you know what it might have meant?"

Penny's temper flared. Sheldon very rarely made reference to her lesser intellect, having learnt that doing so was the quickest way to drive her away. In fact, he was the one who'd got her to stop running herself down. What was he playing at?  _"Yes,_ Sheldon – I know what it could have meant: you not working out how to make rosy Einstein bridges-"

"Einstein-Rosen bridges!" Sheldon squawked, in scandalised tones.

Penny carried on speaking right over him: "-would've meant we didn't have an alternative source of fuel during The Big Chill and fossil fuel crisis. People would have died. Millions of people."

He glared at her. "Not just that, Penny!"

She glared right back. "Right. Of course. You might not have won your Nobel Prize. Forgive me for thinking that people's lives might be more important than your precious ego!"

"Penny-"

"Well, you can take your stupid Prize-"

"Penny-"

"-and shove it up your-"

" _Penny_!"

"What!" she yelled back.

"I am sorry. I did not mean to upset you." Sheldon was fidgeting. He shifted his feet and gave her a helpless, panicked look.

Huh. Funny. He normally only looked like that when she– oh. Penny suddenly registered the tears sliding down her cheeks and angrily swiped them away.

"Don't flatter yourself," she sniffed. "World-saving time travel takes it out of a girl."

A muscle in his cheek pulled at the incorrect terminology, but he resisted correcting her. Another sign he was worried. Tentatively, he reached out and brushed away a tear she'd missed. "Penny, I believe you are labouring under a misapprehension. I was not referring to the lives we saved nor the long overdue recognition I received, important as they are. I was referring to you and me. I am sorry to have spoken intemperately, I was... afraid."

Penny resisted the urge to lean her cheek into the curve of his hand. "Afraid of what?"

"Afraid that your meddling might have changed the future to the extent that you and I... were not you and I."

Annnnd... there it was. From wanting to strangle to him to barely stopping herself from melting into the floor in one easy step.

Only Sheldon could do this to her.

"Oh," was all she managed in a small voice.

He blinked at her, clearly unsure what to say next, but visibly relaxed at the slow smile that crept across her face.

"Well, that's what I was afraid of, too. I know me, Sheldon. I needed a little push. Getting me to break up with Leonard wouldn't have been enough. I needed something to aim for – even if I didn't know what it was yet. So I gave her the possibility of a career, the promise that someone in the future loved her. I didn't give her any hard facts. Just hope."

"Oh," Sheldon mimicked back, looking embarrassed. "Well, it was still a big risk!"

"Yes," she acknowledged. "But it was a bigger risk not to. And I wasn't prepared to face the future without you either." She shivered as a slice of cold went through her, sharp as a razor. As she contemplated a future in which she'd never broken up with Leonard, never opened herself up to new things, never discovered she loved Sheldon... A future without her kooky, gorgeous genius...

Unable to bear it, Penny flung herself into a startled Sheldon's arms, badly needing the contact, the physical assurance that she  _had_  made those choices, that she had walked the path that led to him, to them; to the ring on her finger and the joy in her heart.

His arms came round her, his lips sought hers. And that was enough, to steady her heart... and then set it racing again.

She  _had_ walked that path, and it had led her here.

He was hers; she was his.

The future was bright.

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, Penny has her own career in this future. It just became too exposition-heavy trying to work it in. But I want to make it clear her life is more than just her engagement. Because she deserves more than that, and because, in my mind, being with Sheldon pushes her and him to be the best versions of themselves. As a relationship should.
> 
> Rant over ;)


End file.
